Different types of moveable barrier operators have been sold over the years and these systems have been used to actuate various types of moveable barriers. For example, garage door operators have been used to move garage doors while gate operators have been used to open and close gates.
Such barrier movement operators may include a wall control unit, which is connected to send signals to a head unit thereby causing the head unit to open and close the barrier. In addition, these operators often include a receiver unit at the head unit to receive wireless transmissions from a hand-held code transmitter or from a keypad transmitter, which may be affixed to the outside of the area closed by the barrier or other structure.
The wall control unit or control on a logic board often provides a number of function buttons or switches that are used to perform functions at the barrier. These functions may include opening the barrier, closing the barrier, halting the movement of the barrier, reversing the movement of the barrier turning associated lights on and off, pressing an operator dependent activation sequences such as command input buttons, and enabling and disabling the timer to close the barrier. Selecting the functions on the wall control unit causes the functions to be performed at the barrier operator.
Barrier movement operators frequently operate in a variety of modes including a learning mode. In the learning mode of operation, a transmitter sends a code to the barrier operator. The reception of the code during the learning mode at the barrier operator identifies the transmitter (with the associated code) as a transmitter that is authorized to actuate the barrier. The operator then associates the code with the button on the particular transmitter for future operations. Such learning has been limited to learning a single function such as operating a door for all learned codes.
As mentioned, transmitters sometimes transmit a code to an operator in order to actuate the operator. In some previous systems, the code included a portion that identified a function for the operator to perform. However, this approach required that special programming be performed in both the transmitter and the operator to process the function-specific transmissions. In addition, the codes were fixed in the sense that a particular customer could not change or adjust functions or could only do so with great difficulty. Flexibility was also a problem because the codes were programmed into the system at the time of manufacture and could only be changed by extensive reprogramming of the transmitter and/or the operator. All these problems led to previous systems that were expensive to program and/or difficult to update or tailor to the requirements of specific customers.